Piercing the ghostly veil

A day after princess Celestia and Luna made thier announcement to those who would be brave enough to heed the call and face the threat that covers equestria, they orderd a royal guard to escort the 2 ponies that responded to the call to the nearest and supposedly safest area where the mist did not have to much paranormal energies in the air.

Before the guard and the 2 ponies left the castle, princess Luna mentioned that there where 2 more waiting in the area where they would go into the mist, but a time before they reached the mist, the guard turned around to the unicorn and the Pegasus behind him and said "so, do you 2 think you could handle this? we are not so far from the "border" now if you have anything to say"

Griff heartily chuckled at the guard's question. "Well, I'm pretty sure we can, or so I hope. If not, at least we can't say that we didn't even try!" he answered as he looked around. "I am as ready to take on this as I was when I woke up. Which, for a nomadic-ish pony like me, is ready well. I just wonder what exactly we're supposed to find in there..." he added before curiously looking at the other volunteer that decided to assist in solving the mystery.

"Hey, I live for this sorta thing," Ash said with confidence, "I wouldn't be a merc in the first place if I was a pansy. Besides, a little hocus pocus stuff isn't all that scary once you put an arrow between the eyes of the sorcerer."

Ash had his signature longbow with a quiver full of arrows. He also carried a short sword and wore some light, griffon made leather armor. His head and his spirits were high. There'd be quite a story to tell once this was all over.

The guard chuckled as he heard the responses from the 2 ponies "its good that your spirits are high, frankly im very uncertain what you will encounter in there, there are so many rumors about this mist than i can count" he said as he surveyed the area, seeing a high wall of grey mist ahead of him near a small size abandoned building.

"allright....we are in the meeting and entrance area now, the other 2 voluntiers should be around here somewhere i think, maybe in that building i guess" the royal guard said, shivering att the sight of the mist but jumped a bit a something claterd in there

"Yeah, but what if there isn't a sorcerer?" Griff asked and chuckled. His necklace of fangs from various animals silently rattled as he moved, the unicorn always keeping himself cloaked, so not much of his gear was really visible. "Well, there might even be a 'surprise, we made you think we're all missing but we're just hiding in this fog to throw a surprise party' kind of thing, you never know." He said to the guard before nodding as he looked towards the abandoned building. "So, I guess this is where you leave us, then? Been nice talkin' to ya." He said to the obviously scared guard as he began slowly approaching the abandoned building, almost ignoring the sound from the mist as if it were an everyday occurrence.

Ash also made his way to the abandoned building. He ignored Griff's previous question. If it wasn't a sorcerer, he'd put an arrow into whatever was creating the mist. The noise that came from the mist wasn't enough to make him jump, but he was on alert. He wasn't going to let anything lead to the untimely end of his illustrious career as a mercenary. He kinda hoped whatever made the noise would be trouble. He wanted some excitement after that fairly dull trip.

As the 2 ponies walked closer to the building, through a window, they could see a dark blue unicorn sitting and waiting on something, along with a odd looking creature sitting besides the unicorn and a table infront of them with strewn papers on it.

The door to the building is slightly open to enter, that is untill the handle of the door starts to move on its own, catching the attention of the unicorn and the creature besides him and the unicorn got opp and walked over, his horn not glowing att all, and a low rumble is heard from within the mist nearby.

Griff slightly frowned at pegasus' lack of vocal response before sighing as they finally approached the building, first secretly looking through the window to see if anyone's inside before reaching for the door handle. Just as he was about to touch it, the door began opening. "Well... thanks, I suppose?" Griff said towards the mist before making his way inside, looking at the other unicorn and creature that were inside, presumably waiting for him and Ash. "Well... greetings. I'm Griff." the cloaked unicorn introduced himself before looking around the building.

"And I'm Ash Longbow. We're here to wreck this mist up," he said when he followed Griff in. He had to admit what he said didn't make a lot of sense, but awesomeness didn't have to make sense. He was beginning to think that they were already being affected by the mist since inanimate objects were affected, but so far he couldn't tell what it was doing.

The unicorn and creature inside the building saw the 2 ponies enter and introduce themselfs, the unicorn then said " you must be the 2 other voluntiers for this jobb i guess, my name is cryo blast, and my companion over here is Pyro, a human, now dont worry, he isint something from the mist and he is with me" he said reassuringly to ash and griff

Pyro then stood upp, being slightly taller than the rest "you are right about that, we are the 2 other voluntiers for this mission, but for obious reasons, me and Cryo could not exactly Walts in to canterlot just like that, so thats why we where waiting here" he said from behind cryo att the slighty tarnished sofa, lights then on the opposite side of the building started to flicker lightly, showing signs of slight paranormal activity

"Pleased to.. meet you." Griff said uncertainly after their introduction. He then gave a puzzling look. "What do you mean, obvious reasons? I'm barely fit for society looks-wise, yet I am able to walk through Canterlot just fine. Hell, one of my favorite taverns is there!" He said and chuckled, paying the flickering lights minimal attention. "Out of context, and with no offense, I am safe to assume one of you practices ice magic and the other practices fire magic? Please excuse me if assumptions are wrong."

Ash turned to Griff and said, "I think the reasons are obvious. This guy looks like a hairless monkey, or ape since I don't see a tail. Those stuck up nobles would think he's a circus freak at best. Heck, some of them have their heads so far up their butts that they think a pegasus like me can't think anything more than the basics." He then turned to Pyro and said, "Trust me, you're not missing out by not going to Canterlot."

cryo turned towards griff and said " you would be right on your assumptions, but we can do magic other than our name implies, im a bit more defensive with my spells while my 2 legged friend here is more on the offensive side, though we have a slight affinity to our namesake elements"

pyro meanwhile turned to ash, frowning "as glad as i am that you understood my situation of going to canterlot, i would realy like to not be called a monkey or ape, human or pyro works fine thanks" pyro said, but he noticed something in the far end of the room, something shadow like "w-what is that?" he said, pointing to a shadowy figure

Griff annoyedly looked at Ash. "I was kidding. Though, those 'nobles' didn't seem to mind too much when there was a shark in the fountain." He said and chuckled at the memory. When Pyro mentioned the shadowy figure, Griff lightly jumped after noticing, his necklace of fangs giving way a slight rattle before calming down. "Shadow people... I think I actually read about those once, though it was said that they were mere hallucinations by those on deathbed... Wouldn't be that surprised to see one here when the mist is so obviously close to us."

"Alright, no comparing you to similar animals. Got it," Ash said to Pyro. When the shadowy figure was pointed out and possibly identified by Griff, Ash then said, "Okay, two questions. One, can it hurt us? And two, can we hurt it without magic? Enchanted arrows aren't cheap, you know" As he said this, he drew his bow and aimed an enchanted arrow at it. The fletching he put on himself told him it was a fire arrow. Maybe not the best for a wooden building, but he wasn't going to risk grabbing a safer one.

cryo responded to ash's questions regarding to the shadow people in the same room with them by saying " im not exactly certain on both of your questions, but with this fog nothing is for certain" he said.

Just as cryo finnished his sentence the shadow person in the far end started to move fowards vissibly, its shadowy shape becoming a more transparent black, the light flickering more as the shadow person walked closer to the lights, seemingly more shadow people start to appear in the building while the lights blinked, but as they move closer it can be seen they are in agony over something, a low pained moaning coming from thier side of the building as the door handle starts to suddenly shake violently as the same guard from earlier was heard shreiking over something outside

"Well, looks like this party's about to start. Any bright ideas other than shoot everything?" Ash asked. He wasn't sure if he should try to open the door or not. Bailing out of a window was probably the best idea for an escape, even with the risk of injury.

At the moment, he decided to test and see if his enchanted arrows could do something. He fired off the fire arrow at the closest shadow person and waited to see what happened.

"Dunno, can you hurt a shadow?" Griff chuckled at Ash's question before hearing a guard shrieking outside "What the... I thought he retreated after bringing us here!" Griff said, watching Ash ready an arrow. "Well, unless you have special arrows, I don't think shooting everything will work." he said, turning to the door before turning back to the group just in time to see Ash fire an arrow.

As ash's fire arrow flew towards the closest shadow person, the arrow seemingly passed trough it as it continues to slowly float fowards to the group, that is untill a moment later it suddenly got pushed back by something as it let out a shreik before vanishing, the shadow people now suddenly had masks on them with different designs and expresions as they turned hostile, the guard outside now banging on the window from outside with fear in his eyes as the door closed with a slam.

"they are hostile now, any ideas on how to vanquish them!?" pyro said in a slight panic from behind the 2 unicorns and Pegasus, fraticly looking in his backpack for something to use.

cryo then looked att griff and asked " shadow people are like spirits right? was'int there a superstition about cameras capturing a part of one soul before, anything since we are dealing with these paranormal guys?" he said backing upp a bit to get some distance from the hostile spirits and out of the way of ash's fireing range since his enchanted arrows seemed to have a very delayed effect on them.

"Great, we've angered spirits." Griff mumbled as the shadows took a more visible form with masks. "Could've waited a bit with that arrow." He then looked at the window where the guard was banging. He was tempted to open the window, but was hesitating as he looked back at the shadows. He opened the window and held it open so the supernatural forces couldn't slam it shut. "You should get back to safety, you've done your job!" he yelled at the guard before again returning his attention to shadows and what Cryo said. "Heck if I know anything about that. Do you have a camera nearby to try?" he jokingly asked, trying to keep his spirits high in such situation.

"Hey, we're here to kick butt anyway, may as well start now," Ash said. He decided to try a regular arrow on another shadow person before using more enchanted arrows. He fired the first arrow at one that wasn't very close, then fired a safer ice arrow at the nearest one. After that, he turned his head to Cryo and Pyro and said, "You two have magic, right? Use it!"

The guard outside nodded franticly att Griff before running away to safety, that is untill something large and grey flew past the window where the guard went, he was then seen once again trough the window being draged on the ground by something invisible towards the mist, the guard screamed in fear as he dissapeard from sight.

Inside the sealed building, as Ash fired his regular arrow att a shadow person, it only flew right trough it without any effect but his ice arrow he fired att the closest shadow person went straight trough it aswell, but seconds later the same thing happed to it like the last shadow person that was pierced by his fire arrow, causing it to shreik and dissapear, all the while pyro was searching in his backpack and took out a cloth bag that rattled "found our magic gems cryo, hopefully they work in this situation" he said.

As Pyro took the cloth bag out, a camera tumbled out of his back pack and landed on cryo's head with a loud bonk, the camera then flashed a bright light att the spirits, causing them to scream in pain and stager backwards, thier forms now looked solid as something was drawn from thier spectral essence towards the camera, only for the shadow people regain thier transparent forms a few moments later.

Griff watched the spirit's reactions to being flashed by the camera before swiftly picking it up. "Great, I guess I'm the photographer now!" he said and chuckled as he pointed the camera at the spirits and took a few more photos with flash in order to repel them away. "Seeing as I can't really do anything else as of now... I don't have any offensive magic, I'm trained in another field!"

Seeing that the camera made the shadow people corporeal for a moment, Ash began timing his shots to hit them with regular arrows, assuming that would work. He could recover the regular arrows later, and maybe the ice arrow if he was lucky. He would stick to shooting arrows either way. He didn't want to risk getting close to these things.

"Yes! Now this party's gettin' started!" he said as he fired off a pair of arrows at the exposed shadow people.

With the shadow people now corporeal from the photos Griff are taking of them, the shadow people where noticebly geting weaker as more of thier souls where being taken away and sucked into the camera, the same would go for ash's arrows, hurting the shadow people as the arrows audibly impacted thier corporeal bodies as pieces of thier bodies dissapears with a splash, making it easier for griff to photograf them as soul fragments where released from physical impact and damage from ash's arrows.

" you are beating them, way to go!" pyro cheers, seeing that Griff and Ash are enough to dispatch the shadow people in the building